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| Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue |
| Arts and Civic Dialogue, Summer 2000 |
The Institute on the Arts and
Civic Dialogue (IACD), directed by Anna Deveare Smith in association
with the W.E.B. DuBois Institute and the American Repertory Theatre,
was an experiment "to create a new kind of civic space where
artists and their audiences …engage in dialogue on compelling
and complex social issues." Audiences were invited to respond
to works in all art forms, shown at an early stage. The project
created long-term relationships with the core audience, who committed
to attend every performance during one of the three summers of the
experiment. Guinier and Tim Mitchell used Augusto Boal’s interactive
theater exercises to facilitate audience involvement and stimulate
further conversation about an artist’s photographic presentation
on prisons
|
| One of the group projects in
a critical perspectives class was to teach critical perspectives
in an urban high school environment. Unlike highly motivated law
students, some of the participants were recruited from among those
serving detention or were not academically inclined. They were joined
by students with strong high school records as well as students
who were passionate about social justice issues. Even the less motivated
students were able to connect with larger questions of social policy
through the use of hip hop lyrics, movies, and their own art projects.
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"Designing
and teaching this course was one of the highlights of my year at
Harvard. It brought me back full circle to the things I am most
passionate about – namely working with young people / social
change. It also helped me to think through my approach to this work
with these young folks and reminded me why this work is so central
to my life."
